henri nouwen on prayer...

Praying means giving up your false security, no longer looking for arguments which will protect you if you get pushed into a corner, and no longer setting your hope on a couple of lighter moments which you life might still offer. To pray means to stop expecting from God the same small-mindedness which you discover in yourself. To pray is to walk in the full light of God and to say simply, without holding back, 'I am human and you are God.' At that moment, conversion occurs, the restoration of the true relationship. A human being is not someone who once in a while makes a mistake, and God is not someone who now and then forgives. No! Human beings are sinners, and God is love. The conversion experience makes this obvious with stunning simplicity and disarming clarity.

This conversion brings with it the relaxation which lets you breathe again and puts you at rest in the embrace of a forgiving God. The experience results in a calm and simple joy. For then you can say: "I don't know the answer and I can't do this thing, but I don't have to know it and I don't have to be able to do it.' This new knowledge is the liberation which gives you access to everything in creation and leaves you free to play in the garden that lies before you.